Ramatoulaye B.

Hi, I’m Rama and I’m rising sophomore atKIPP NYC College Prep High School – KIPP NYC. For my main project I decided to make a RFID card, which unlocks any computers based onhttps://learn.adafruit.com/tv-b-gone-kit/solder-it. I chose this project because I wanted to mostly focus on programing and coding.

I really enjoyed my 6 weeks at Bluestamp Engineering because I was able to learn a lot of stuff at Bluestamp about Mechanical engineering, Electrical engineering, and Computer engineering. I also learned a lot of stuff about coding and programming. I was able to make a RFID card that is able to unlock my computer without me typing in my password. My favorite thing doing this project was that I got to learn the different components of coding and I was able to construct my own code without anyone helping me and giving me ideas of how my code should be made and how they should be working. In the future I would like to become a computer science and I would like to take the skills that I learned at Bluestamp and apply to my career, so I could use that skills that I learned and expand more on it, so I could open my company that deals with computers and become more successful in life. During my experience at Bluestamp, I felt frustrated, angry, and sometimes I would think about giving up but all of that emotion motivated me to work hard and not let my feelings getting in the way of me completing something. That thought me to be strong and never to give up on something and I should always work hard for what I want in life. But during the experience I always felt excited when I was able to get something working, but that didn’t stop me from pushing and modifying it more so it could be able to complete a lot of stuff. Bluestamp really thought me to be independent and not always rely on other people to help me.

Engineer

Ramatoulaye B.

Area of Interest

Computer Engineering

School

KIPP NYC College Prep

Grade

Incoming Sophomore

Final Project

My third and final milestone deals with modification, so I was able to modify my code, so it could allow my RIFD card to unlock PC computers other than only mac laptop. The way I was able to make that work was by modifying the code, so when the the RFID card is unlocking the computer, the arduino leonardo would think that the PC computer is a mac computer. So the arduino leonardo would be able to communicate with the PC keyboards. I faced a lot of technical difficulties because first my code started to work on a PC and mac laptop and then later on it started to only work on the PC laptop and it stopped working on the mac laptop, so I had to modify my code more so it could work on any computers.

Second Milestone

My second milestone was having a RFID card that was able to unlock my computer. I was able to complete that but I was facing a lot of technical difficulties by trying to make two arduino’s communicate with each other, which wasn’t working out the way I wanted to work. It caused me to have a lot of delays because my arduino uno wasn’t working with the arduino Leonardo, which caused me to be behind and lose a lot of time to modify my project. But then I realized that instead of making two arduino’s communicate with each other, I could just change the library name to Adafruit_PN532 and change the other names that had the old library name to the new library name to make it work. When I did that the code was able to upload to my arduino Leonardo board and the RFID card was able to communicate with my shield and the RFID card was able to unlock my computer. Which saved me a lot of time because now I’m able to modify my RFID card and do whatever I want it to do. My next milestone is programming a joystick that I could use to unlock my computer without my RFID card.

First Milestone

My first milestone was uploading the code to my shield and making the shield be able to communicate with the RFID card. This involved learning how to code for a Arduino Uno and making the Adafruit shield be able to communicate with the Arduino Uno. This also, involved a lot of steps because I had to learn the components of coding and programing on a Arduino. I had to try different kinds of libraries because all of them wasn’t working on my board but when I downloaded the Adafruit PN532_I2C, it worked because that was the library I was suppose download in order for the code to upload on my Arduino Uno.
What I learned from doing this project is that I learned a lot of the components of coding and the difference between HIGH and LOW, also I learned the difference between INPUT and OUTPUT. Which means that when the digitalWrite is HIGH the digitalRead would become High and do something, but when digitalWrite is LOW, the digitalRead would become LOW and the digitalRead wouldn’t do anything it would stay the same. I also learned that in order for you to get something you gotta try multiple times before your code starts working because I faced a lot of troubles in order to try to make my code upload to my board, which happen at the end when I tried a new code with a new library and also I had to change my board from a Leonardo to an Uno in order for the code to communicate my shield and the board.
My next milestone is making my Arduino Uno to be able to communicate with Arduino Leonardo, so it would be able to unlock my computer.

Starter Project

For my starter project, I built a TV-B-Gone. It has a variety of components of batteries, resistors, electrolytic capacitor, ceramic capacitor, oscillator, socket, microcontroller, PNP transistor, NPN transistor, IR LEDs, and LED. The way it works is that the TV-B-Gone contains a resistor that limit the current of the LED, so the resistor sets the brightness of the little indicator LED. Also, the TV-B-Gone has ceramic capacitor, which observe the voltage spike. Which leads to the oscillator, which is the time clock for the microcontroller, it make sure that the microcontroller is performing its function at the correct speed. There is alo a socket , which protect the chip and make it easy to insert and remove the microcontroller. Which leads to the microcontroller, which is a device that stores all the codes and it also turns on the LEDs and it turns them off. The TV-B-Gone also contains a resistor which is the base resistor for the PNP transistor. Also, the NPN transistors are the device that turns the high power of the IR LEDs, which makes the IR LEDs as a remote control that turn the TV on and off. I learned a lot making this project, as it is a soldering kit. I learned how to solder. When I finished my project, it didn’t work because the way I solder the pieces, it was to close to each other, so I had to learn how to desolder the pieces and resolder it again. It took me forever to desolder the pieces because the desoldering takes time and it also takes forever to do. By the time I was able to desolder all the parts and solder it again, I was able to make the TV-B-Gone to work and turn on the TV and be able to turn the TV off.